“I challenge anybody to be able to look at the candidates in the first few weeks and, unless it’s an inspired guess, know who’ll fare well. It is a marathon not a sprint.”

This week’s debut episode sees the two teams, of nine women and nine men, sell antiques and collectables for as much cash as possible – with typically mixed results.

“It’s hilarious,” smiles Claude. “They try to do the right things and it all goes painfully wrong.

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"It’s great in a way – you’re laughing at them because it goes wrong, but on the other hand, it’s usually a simple mistake they make that has a huge effect. It’s a very good opening episode.”

It’s perhaps not surprising things sometimes go wrong on challenges when you consider the circumstances the candidates have to deal with.

“You’re thrown together with a whole load of people you don’t know, all of whom are competitive and want to get the edge,” explains Claude, 67.

“One week you’re working with them and they’re your best friend, the next they’re quite happy to throw you under the bus.

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“Also, you are living with strangers, you’ve got no internet, no television, no access to your family and no phones. You’ve got to get up at four o’clock in the morning and work until late.

"You’ve got a camera in your face, you’ve got Karren or me bearing down on you and you’ve got Alan Sugar. It’s a catalogue of disasters.”

But Lord Sugar is sure it’s an effective process.

“The idea is to bring people down to earth and stop dreaming about becoming dotcom millionaires,” proclaims the businessman, 69.

“People watching will go: ‘Wow, he gave them a few quid to get out there and they came back three days later having made a grand.’ That’s the way you start a business. The truth is that the real successful people started at the bottom with just 250 quid and learnt their trade.”

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Even after 12 years of The Apprentice, thousands of people still apply to take part.
“It’s no wonder, really, because they’ve got nothing to lose,” says Claude.

“If they manage to make it to the final 18, they’ve got the chance of learning a lot, having the exposure and, possibly, winning the life-changing £250,000.”

But anyone who’s more interested in a career in reality TV, be warned…

“I have a nose for those kinds of people and they’re out pretty quickly,” says Lord Sugar.

“Alan is not that interested in character, he’s more concerned by: ‘Is this person going to be tough in business and translate a business idea into a profitable company?’” agrees Claude.

“I’m more interested in them having a good business plan and being a character who can work well with Alan, because that’s a challenge in itself!”

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An experienced business executive, Claude may come across as cold while observing the tasks, but it’s all about maintaining fairness.

“I don’t engage with the candidates at all. If they say: ‘Good morning’ to me, I ignore them,” he reveals. “It’s horrible, but I don’t want to show any kind of favouritism, so essentially I just keep myself completely aloof throughout.

“What’s going on inside, though, is obviously me thinking: ‘Oh, please don’t do that!’ You want to stop them, but that would ruin things. You’ve just got to let it flow or it’d be unfair – if I encourage one team, then Karren’s would be at a disadvantage. But the temptation is huge. That’s quite hard, to keep your mouth shut.”

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Of course, Claude is famous for his ferocious approach during the interview stage – but this tiger of business may be a pussycat at heart.

“On the show, I think I am the stern one and that’s no bad thing,” he reflects.

“I’m not focused on being nasty, but it’s a test for the candidates to see whether they can actually survive that brutal kind of exchange. And because they’re fearful before they walk in the door, I don’t want to disappoint them…

“But after the show I’m quite a different person. A number of contestants have contacted me afterwards to see if I can give them advice or introduce them to people who might invest in their business, which I’m happy to do.”

As Lord Sugar’s frequent Twitter spats with Piers Morgan have reassured us, he’s convinced the popularity of The Apprentice isn’t going to wane anytime soon. Yet he could have been part of a rival entrepreneurial show.

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“I like Dragons’ Den. I always watch that and put it on the series link,” he admits.

“Would I have done it? If it had been thought of before The Apprentice and someone had approached me, possibly. They’re a bunch of shrewd guys on that programme and they do a very good service promoting enterprise. It’s a great show.”

And that’s not all he likes to watch on the box.

“Boardwalk Empire is a great series. And Saturday night, before going out, we’ll watch or record The X Factor,” he reveals.

“My wife [Ann] likes it. We do what ITV wouldn’t like me to tell everyone else to do, which is skip through the adverts and the mums and dads, and just go straight to the singing and the judges’
opinions.

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"ITV won’t like this but The X Factor is really for recording. If you get rid of the sob stories of: ‘I love this, Simon! I need this, Simon! This makes my life change, Simon!’ you can condense an hour-long programme into about 22 minutes.”

It seems Lord Sugar holds Simon Cowell in rather higher regard than his old rival Piers?

“Piers has asked me to do Life Stories, but I don’t want to be on Life Stories,” he laughs.

“The funny thing about Piers is that when he was a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, the show reached 11 million viewers. He would claim that those figures were down to him and then compare that to the seven million The Apprentice got and say: ‘There you are, I beat you again!’ The poor fellow digs himself a big, big hole.

“He starts this kind of banter [on Twitter], then he can’t take it when the boot’s on the other foot. I have pointed out to him that when he was on Britain’s Got Talent, there were three of them on the judges’ panel, so if you took their 11 million viewers and divided them by three, it would be around three million each. Considering Simon Cowell was one of them, I would then re-evaluate it and give Cowell eight million and Morgan half a million.”